The Greatest Person in World History

29/08/2010 Cemal Ersen
We will share the findings of a western non-Muslim scientist, Michael Hart, about our Prophet
(PBUH) in this article. Ustad Bediuzzaman says; “Virtue is what even his enemies confirm” Now,
although that man is a non-Muslim, since he searched with fairness he saw the clear virtues of our
Prophet (PBUH) and showed these facts in his book in a clear way that everybody can understand.
Assigning the first place to the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in his book entitled “The 100: A
Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History” he has announced a very accurate and
important truth to the world.

The other interesting point in article is that the features narrated as the proofs of choosing him first
overlap one to one with the findings in the Seventh Droplet of the 19th Word where Ustad
Bediuzzaman proved that the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) is a true prophet.

Let us quote from Ustad:

“Look! How he abolished wild and evil customs of those wild tribes who were obstinate and bigoted
in their customs and taught the best moral values and made them teachers to the whole world and
masters to the civilized nations. He fulfilled this without pressure, conquering hearts and minds and
souls. He became the beloved of hearts, teacher of minds, trainer of souls and sultan of spirits.”
(Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, The Words, 19th Word)

We extracted the most interesting points of five pages below assigned for our Prophet (PBUH) from
Michael Hart’s book:

THE PROPHET MUHAMMAD (571 – 632)

Muhammad: The central human figure of Islam, regarded by Muslims as the messenger and last
prophet of God. Active as a social reformer, diplomat, merchant, philosopher, orator, legislator, and
military leader.

My choosing Muhammad as the first person of the list of the most influential people of the
world may astonish some readers and even some may question this matter; but he was the
unique person who excelled perfectly both in religious and secular fields.

Muhammad, who originated from humble ancestors, established one of the greatest religions of
the world, spread it and he became a very influential political leader. Today, thirteen centuries
later after his death the power and extend of his influence continues.

Most of the people in this book had the opportunity to be born as a member of nations which
had high cultural, political and civilization values and they were trained according to these
values. But, Muhammad was born in 571 in the city of Mecca, which was in the south Arabia
and far away from trade, art and science centres and was a most underdeveloped area of the
world. He was orphaned aged six and was brought up in humble conditions. Islam tradition
says that he was illiterate. After he married a rich widow when he was twenty five, his
economic situation improved. Nevertheless, until he was forty there were few signs indicating
that he was an extraordinary man.
(…)  Arab Bedouins were known as formidable warriors. But they were few in number; clashes and
devastating fights among them wreaked havoc on the area. They were not equal to the armies of
kingdoms settled in the cultivated areas in the north. However, after being unified for the first time
by Muhammad and their hearts filled with the enthusiasm of the faith of Allah these little Arab
armies attempted the most surprising conquests of history of humanity.

In the north-east of Arabia was the Great Persian Empire of Sassanids and in the north-west was
Byzantium or East Roman Empire whose centre was Constantinople.  In numbers, the Arabs were
never equal to their adversaries. But in the battlefield everything was too different and the Arabs
filled with excitement conquered all of Mesopotamia, Syria, and Palestine. Until 642, the Persian
armies were defeated in Qadisiya (637) and   Nihawand (642) wars and Egypt was captured from
Byzantium Empire.

Even those conquests which were organized by Abu Bakr and Umar , the close friends and
successors of the Prophet, did not suffice for the Arab armies. Until 711, they descended to Atlantic
ocean conquering throughout the North Africa. They turned to the North here, passed Straits of
Gibraltar and defeated Visigoth Kingdom.

(…) Overflown with the discourse of their Prophet, these bedouins, in a war time lasting a century,
established an empire extending from Indian borders to the Atlantic ocean; the greatest empire which
the world had ever witnessed until that day. People largely converted into the new faith in the end
where the armies conquered.

(…) In the course of time the new religion went on spreading far beyond the boundaries which the
first Muslim conquests reached. Today, it has millions of believers in Africa and Middle Asia; and
many more in Pakistan, North India and Indonesia.

(…) So, how should the extension of influence of Muhammad on the history of humanity be
evaluated? As all religions, Islam has a great influence on lives of its believers. This is a reason why
founders of the great religions in the world come to the forefront in this book. At first glance it may
seem strange that the Muhammad is before Jesus, although the number ofChristians living in the
world were two times more than Muslims. There are two basic reasons for this preference. First;
Muhammad had an important influence in the development of Islam much more than Jesus had in
development of Christianity. However Jesus established basic moral and spiritual creeds in
Christianity (separate from Judaism), the one who developed Christian theology and spread it and
wrote most of the New Testament was Saint Paul.

But Muhammad founded both theology and basic moral and spiritual principles of Islam. In addition,
he played the most important role in recognition of new belief and settlement of Islamic worships.
Furthermore, he is the writer of the Qur’an the holy book of Islam which was revealed to him and
expresses his discourse. Most of his sayings were recorded largely accurately when he was alive and
his hadiths which were ordinance were compiled not so long after his death and had become very
effective. Thus, Qur’an reflects thoughts and teachings of Muhammad. We do not have Jesus’s
authentic compiled teachings as in this way.  Since the Qur’an means to Muslims the importance at
least Bible means for Christians the effect which Muhammad created through Qur’an was much
greater. It is likely that the relative effect which Muhammad had on Islam is greater than the effect
that Jesus Christ and Saint Paul together had on Christianity. Thus, it is possible to say that
Muhammad is influential on history of humanity as much as Jesus Christ is, just only in terms of
religion.
Apart from this, Muhammad (differently from Jesus) was a leader in secular fields as well as he was
in religion. Even, he deserves to be called as the most influential political leader of all times as the
driving force behind the Arab conquests.

(…)  Thus, we see that the Arab conquests in the seventh century have been playing an important
role on history of humanity so far. This unmatched combination of secular and religious effects leads
me to believe that Muhammad deserves the title “the most influential person in human history”.

*****

Prof. Michael Hart, an American scientist who had repercussions across whole world with his book
titled “The 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History” attended in an award
ceremony in Cairo ten years later, after his book was first published. In the ceremony he was asked
by correspondents of the Al- Ahram newspaper as following “It has been nearly ten years after you
published your book. You assigned the first place to Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) in your “100
influential persons” book. Do you still preserve that as your approach?” Hart answered the following:
“This is the first list of celebrities. If this number is raised to 200-300, the place of Muhammad in the
top of the list is fixed.

When I searched famous people, I determined some fixed criteria. One of these is the deep and
comprehensive traces which they have on human history. The reason why I chose Muhammad as the
famous of the celebrities is both his prophethood and excellent success in religious and secular fields.
Human morality has never witnessed a perfect religion like Islam philosophically and judicial. After
passing away of Muhammad Islam continued to spread in the east and west of the world. And still,
many people prefer to convert into Islam with their minds and hearts.  The religion to which
Muhammad invited people emerged fourteen centuries earlier in an area which was far away from
civilization and cultural centres. And it advanced suffering some difficulties. After all, Islam made
progress in every area of the world. And I believe that a perfect man like Muhammad will never
come again.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/novack/works/history/ch04.htm
 The Best People Theory. All such interpretations contain infusions of the prejudice that some
elite, the Best Race, the favoured nation, the ruling class alone make history. The Old Testament
assumed that the Israelites were God’s chosen people. The Greeks regarded themselves as the
acme of culture, better in all respects than the barbarians. Plato and Aristotle looked upon the
slave-holding aristocracy as naturally superior to the lower orders.
I see two huge main problems with The Great Person Theory of History:

1. Interdependence: The creations of these “Great People” are almost inevitably dependent
on many people who came before them — both those who made mistakes and those who
approximated reality closer than those before them. Almost all ideas or discoveries can be
shown to be dependent on the many discoveries or ideas that proceeded them.  The Solar
Furnace post shows just a minuscule number of the discoveries that feed Bethe’s discovery.
2. Co-Discovery:  Ideas are often born of several people independently and often
simultaneously showing that any particular “Great Person” is not a necessary as one might be
tempted to think.  In fact, if any of these great men or women had never been born, the idea
most likely would have come out eventually anyway.   It is as if we share knowledge which
ripens for any number of people to eventually pick.  For a list of co-discoveries or “multiple
discoveries” see this wiki article.  Here are a few famous ones:
 Calculus: Newton, Leibniz (1600s)
 Oxygen: Scheele (1773), Priestley (1774)
 Electric Telegraph: Wheatstone & Morse (1937)
 Evolution: Darwin (1840), Wallace (1857)
 Chromosomes: Sutton & Boveri (1902)
 Sound Film: Tykociner (1922), Forest (1923)
 Quantum electrodynamics:  Stueckelberg, Schwinger, Feynman, Tomonaga
(1930-40s)
 Universal Computing Machine:  Alan Turing & Emil Post (1936)
 Polio vaccine: Koprowski, Salk, Sabin  (1950-63)
 Jet Engine: Campini (1940), Whittle (1941)
 Nanotubes:  Bethune and Iijima (1993)
3. So, though the montage on the right may be a bit improved “Great Person” view of history
than the one above, it is still distorted.  The Great Person theory is pervasive.  It permeates
the historical models of people all over the world.
4. This model is a common temptation because of the existence of social hierarchy modules in
human brains — we are built to look for leaders and heroes.    We share this with other
primates.  These “leader” modules probably lead us into the delusional side of the Great
Person Theory of History.   Our minds hunger for heros and leaders for our tribe.  Indeed the
larger “tribal” module even has us generate “the other” and villains.  We fill our histories with
stories of evil people to explain our lives: Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao and recently, the late bin
Laden.  But like the hero stories, the villain stories lack the nuances of the many, many
people involved and of the concepts and causes that really feed the phenomena.